


If You Can't Say Something Nice

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-10
Updated: 2008-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:18:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets cursed. The cure is awkward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Can't Say Something Nice

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Written for [](http://iamstealthyone.livejournal.com/profile)[**iamstealthyone**](http://iamstealthyone.livejournal.com/) 's birthday. Thanks to [](http://marinarusalka.livejournal.com/profile)[**marinarusalka**](http://marinarusalka.livejournal.com/) for the beta.
> 
> Set late Season 1, post-Hell House.

The old man laughed, the wrinkles deepening in his face, laugh lines criss-crossing with age lines until Dean thought of roads covered with cracked tar.

Their prisoner didn't seem at all upset about getting caught and bound in iron. Seemed like he had almost expected it, in fact. Which would explain the glee. Maybe for his kind, it was a game.

Next to him Sam began to say the incantation. The signs he'd scratched in the dirt around the old wrinkled dude flared white-hot as if lit from beneath the earth, and Dean stepped back, shading his eyes with his hand.

The little old guy -- or _elf_ or whatever the heck the thing was -- reached into the pocket of his soft brown coat. He mumbled a string of words under his breath, opened up his hand, and blew across his palm. A cloud of dust puffed outward, and the wrinkly elf vanished.

Dean sneezed.

"Gezundheit," said Sam.

"So, is he gone now? Back to, uh..."

"Probably. There's no way we'll know for sure."

"Great. You hungry? I saw a diner a few miles back that looked like it probably had good pancakes." Dean knelt, began gathering up the now empty iron chains left behind when the creature had vanished. A rusty spur on one of the links cut into his thumb. "Damn." He licked the tip of his thumb, tasting the tang of blood.

Sam put the spiral notebook where he'd written down the banishment ritual into his backpack. His stomach growled loudly enough Dean heard it. "Yeah."

The sky above the clearing lightened to a pre-dawn paleness as they started walking back to the car, their breaths rising in clouds in the cold air. The hunt hadn't been difficult; the elf was mostly prankster.

His toe snagged on a root. Dean stumbled, put his hand out to steady himself and wound up grabbing the branch of a thorn bush. "Aw, crap!"

"You okay?" Sam turned, forehead creasing with a frown.

"Fine. Sometimes I really hate nature, y'know?"

Dean rubbed his scratched fingers against his jeans, smearing away the blood. Should probably put some peroxide on his fingers later.

They found the Impala right where they'd left it, pulled off to the side of the road, as far back into the trees as Dean could manage without damaging the paint job. Sam popped open the trunk and held out his hand. Dean tossed his backpack to Sam, then unlocked the driver's side door. He wrenched the door open and bonked his shin with it.

"Ow." It didn't hurt much, but that sucker would bruise. Dean stuck his foot up on the hood and tugged up the leg of his jeans. The door had drawn blood, leaving a small series of scrapes up his calf. " _Et tu,_ baby?" He said, looking down through the windshield at the steering wheel.

Sam slammed the trunk closed and opened the passenger side door without incident. He shot Dean a _look_ , but stayed quiet.

Turned out Dean was right about the diner. The bacon was crisp, almost but not quite burned, and the pancakes were good. They had real maple syrup, too.

Of course, he tripped going up the cement steps, scraped the hell out of his left palm, the hand that hadn't yet been damaged by the thorn bush.

"God, Dean." Sam grabbed his wrist, checking the damage, but Dean shook him off.

"It's nothing." He shoved passed Sam and went to the bathroom, washed the gravel out of the cut.

When he got back to the table, Sam very studiously kept his eyes down on the menu but Dean caught him glancing his way.

On the way out of the diner, Dean tripped down the steps, landing on his hands and knees on the gravel. Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick.

"Dean!" Sam didn't bother keeping the alarm out of his voice as he knelt and grabbed Dean's shoulders, pulling him to his feet.

"I'm all ri--" Dean started to say, but what was the point.

Sam didn't say anything all the way back to the motel room. He made Dean go ahead of him for the six yard walk from the car to their door; Dean could practically feel Sam's eyes burning into his back, watching, hands out ready to catch. It seemed as if he was going to make it all the way without another incident, but at the last minute he tripped on his bootlace and stumbled. His elbow banged against the motel wall, right on the funny bone, and oh, holy _hell_ that hurt like a hurting thing. Dean blinked back the sting of tears, an involuntary reaction, shaking the numbness out of his arm.

The moment they got inside, Sam pushed Dean into a chair.

"Stay there. Don't move."

Then Sam opened up his laptop and started googling.

"The old guy blew some powder at you," Sam muttered, eyes on the computer screen.

"Uh-huh." He hated elves.

"You used the men's room while we were in the diner. Did you trip when you were in there?"

"No, Sam. I know how to go to the men's room, okay?" Christ, this was embarrassing.

"And you didn't trip walking to the table..." Sam hit a few more keys then put his laptop down. "Come here." He went over and opened the motel room door.

"What?"

"Just. C'mere. I need to check something." Sam gestured outside.

Whatever weird-ass reason Sam had, Dean had no idea, but he had nothing better to do right then and, well, something was definitely _off_. So Dean went outside.

"Okay, walk," Sam said, following him.

"Walk?"

Standing framed in the open door, Sam heaved the sigh of the noble martyr. "Walk. Please."

Dean walked. And promptly tripped, falling into a boxwood bush. "Craaaaaaaap." Dean shoved his way out of the bush, which would never be the same again.

"Uh, are you hurt?"

"Not this time."

When Sam started picking twigs and landscaping wood chips off of him, Dean backed away. "Dude, enough."

"All right, back inside," Sam said, quiet.

So they went back inside and Sam asked him to walk to the window and back. Which Dean accomplished with perfect ease and grace, thank you very much.

"That confirms it. The curse only happens to you outside."

Yep. Nature sucked rocks.

Sam tapped at the mousepad on the laptop, then sat down and read for a minute. Another minute. Dean began to fidget. After he hit another screen, and read more, Sam made a weird sound, a muffled, strangled noise. Maybe like he was trying not to laugh. When Dean looked at him, Sam's face was way too serious.

"I've found a way to break the curse."

"Well?"

"It's a fairly common curse. The fairies think it's funny, apparently. It can't hurt you in the long run beyond some bruises, cuts, and inconvenience. Of course, there are documented cases of people eventually going insane if it goes on too long."

"Before I turn thirty, Sam." Kid talked too much, that's what.

"The short version? If you're outdoors, you'll fall down a lot."

"So how do we break this dumbass curse, Einstein?"

"Couple of different methods going around. The only one I was able to cross-reference and found documentation that it worked is something this hunter in Ireland pointed me to. He's got three cases where this was successful."

There it was again, the smile, quickly hidden. The little shit thought this was _funny_.

"What is it, Sammy?"

"To lift the curse, you have to compliment someone three times."

"You're yanking my chain."

"See for yourself." Sam turned the laptop screen so Dean could view it.

Dean sat in the chair opposite Sam's at the table, and read. He clicked a link. Another link.

If this was a joke on Sam's part, he'd gone to a lot of trouble and paid through the nose in domain name fees. "No way."

"Uh-huh. Oh, and you'll note on the link to the UK website, it can't be some empty praise, you can't just say to somebody that you like their shoes. It has to be...relevant to that person. Personally."

There was a long silence after that. Dean closed the laptop and picked at a crack in the table with his thumbnail.

"Yeah, well, there's the cute check-in clerk, but I barely know her so I guess it wouldn't work, would it. Or that waitress at the diner."

"Probably not," said Sam.

Another long pause, and then Sam pulled out his cell and held it out to Dean. "Here. You call Pastor Jim and..."

"Knock it off, will ya? You act like my head will explode if I say something nice to you."

"It might," Sam said, so deadpan serious that Dean almost punched him right there.

Dean wandered over to the dresser, fiddled with the water pitcher, and then said, "You're better at finding stuff than anyone I've ever seen. Better than Dad, even. You're just...you're good at the research thing."

"Thank you," Sam said.

"How many did you say?"

"Three. You've got two to go."

Dean rubbed his hand over his face, clenched and unclenched his other hand, wincing as the scrapes stung. This shouldn't be so hard. He could think of a lot of good things about his brother, a hundred different things. Problem was, he didn't say them, hardly ever. He said _thanks for saving my bacon_ and _not too shabby, college boy_.

"You aren't afraid to tell people how you feel." Dean coughed into his fist.

If Sam had said one word, _one word_ after that, Dean knew he would've said something like _you were good at soccer, I was proud of you_ next. But Sam didn't say anything. He knotted his fingers and put his elbows on his knees, keeping his eyes down still.

Dean thought about what it'd been like, when Sam was at college.

"Even if we weren't blood..." Dean stopped, and talked faster when Sam looked up, a doubtful shadow crossing his face. "Even if we weren't blood, if we were still both hunters, and I knew you...outside of Dad, there's no one else I'd trust as much as you to hunt with. I'd still want you as my partner."

He wasn't sure if that counted as a compliment or not. He hadn't said anything specifically about _Sam_ , not out loud, at least, not all the stuff he was thinking, how solid Sam was and how Dean felt safer knowing he was watching his back, how he'd work a problem and work it and work it to death, gnaw it down to the bone until he figured out a solution, how Dean was certain he'd have been dead years ago without his brother's saves, even back when Sam's aim was so bad he couldn't shoot the side of a barn.

"Go outside and see what happens," Sam said quietly. He kept his face carefully blank.

Dean found the motel room suddenly too stuffy, too small, anyway. Dean went outside fast, then walked up and down the breezeway a few times. He even walked the edge of the curb, trying to see if he could make himself fall.

Everything worked the way it ought to.

"We're good now," Dean shouted back into the room.

Sam stood in the doorway, folded his arms, and smiled. "Yeah. We're good."

  
~end


End file.
